For our first foray into SR4 I’ll be playing the tech character. We’re basically a black ops team that’s fully employed by a local corp. We do high threat missions for competitive pay, a decent 401K package, and a medical package that’s to die for. Basically, we’re a corporate version of Section 9. So, continuing on the Ghost in the Shell comparisons, I want to run a character with the tech/hacking abilities of Motoko Kusanagi. Since she can pretty well do everything there is to do (shy of spell casting) I’ll limit my aspirations to only her combat hacking abilities (so, no 1 handing a HMG.) I’m hoping to fill the role of combat buff/debuffer.

Given this, and a full compliment of enemies and allies what would you say will be my top 3 actions when the lead starts to fly (aside from Take Cover?) I don’t intend to be worthless with a gun, after all I have to meet my weekly range requirements just like everyone else, but I know my team mates’ abilities in this regard will far outstrip my own.

For Example: in Ghost in the Shell and it’s follow-ups, Major Kusanagi has demonstrated the ability to do the below actions. How well will these transcribe to SR4?

• Remote control an opponent’s cyber arm
• Activate/Deactivate an opponent’s networked equipment/cyber
• Plant false sensory input
• “Ride” an opponent’s senses
• Copy/view information from opponent’s stored data

A long time ago I read the entire core book and portions of arsenal, augmentation, and unwired. I seem to recall that at least some of these were possible, even if they mechanically only imposed penalties instead of allowing complete control/access.

PS: How feasible is a prosthetic body (full cyber) in SR4? In for a penny, in for a pound I suppose.

Full cyber is seriously hard. Each arm/leg is a full point of essence, and then torso + head is just over 2 essence, so you have to have at least a little bit of alpha gear. Personally I think GitS full cyborgs would run more along the line of the cyborgs from SR which are basically just brains that control a drone body. This is especially shown to be the case because the Major switches bodies several times, and is even show to control up to three bodies as her own at once (Though two is her limit of continuous operation).

Control an opponents arm would require you to take over his commlink, then use that to switch off the DNI for their arm, then actually control the arm. Really not practical, and there are constant discussions of how impossible it is.
Turning off equipment could be done by individual hacks or direct to the commlink and just have all the things shut down.
False sensory input could maybe be done with the edit command and access to their cybereyes (likely through their commlink once again)
"Ride" senses is fairly easy if they are recording their cybersense (Or contacts or glasses) or sending them through their commlink (Once again, very common).
Copy/view is the basics of hacking into something.

"False sensory input could maybe be done with the edit command and access to their cybereyes (likely through their commlink once again)" Please correct me if I'm wrong, but this use of edit would only be able to "hack someones eyes" if they and the target are not moving?

It would be easier to edit memories as a mage with Alter Memory? wouldn't it?

As far as the full cyber vs. cyborg goes.. I 100% agree with Karoline.

A lot of the things you want to do start with gaining access to a targets PAN, keep in mind the different ways you'd have to do that. If the target has a skinlink you're going to have the right equipment or touch them long enough to hack in.

A TM could also make a good version of the major, it would allow for some of the crazy hacking but not the cyber like a regular hacker.

Let us know what you come up with.

Your first post huh? Welcome to Dumpshock!

The Major is really hard to do. SR rules do not allow for the wild jumping she does going from roof to roof or dropping out of planes but does allow for moving faster than she does. For SR she is a combat monster and a super grade A hacker. You might need to start out with the cybered/cyborg character and have her grow as a hacker as play continues instead of having her step fully developed onto the field in the first run..

Definitely agreed on the cyborg - maybe flip the earlier suggestions around and make a hacking beast before picking up more combat skills? What sorts of chargen are you being given - BP, Karma, Priority (god forbid)?

Since you're the tech character, accept that you won't be nearly as good at beating people down as the Major is, and that you may never be. Start off as a hacker, since your team will likely need one fro the beginning, but hackers aren't really comat buffers or debuffers... SR doesn't really work that way.

I agree that Cyborg is absolutely the closest thing to GitS’s Full Prosthetic, but I seem to recall that Cyborg had some disadvantage that I wasn’t willing to take up. Again, I read it a while ago. I’ll brush up on it again before I make a final decision, but I’m leaning away from Cyborg at the moment.


What’s this about movement affecting hacking?


Granted, but I’m no mage, and he’ll likely be busy. I’d just like to know the extent of my influence. I’m reasonably sure it’s limited to stored memory/data. Too bad I can’t hack Bio-stored data


Thanks! I’ve got some fiends that have been on here forever so I figured I’d finally post and join in. I’ll update this post with my character bones as they form up.



Luckily, I’m not concerned with either for this character. My friends laughed when I said I’m building Motoko. Since she can do everything, including being in two places at once, I thought I might tone it down a little. I’m only concerned with her near supernatural gift at hacking and data manipulation. Dealing Damage is a tertiary priority.


No Idea. I liked becks in the old days, and I expect we’ll use a points buy in the new one. When it’s decided I’ll let you know.


Maybe true, maybe not. If ejecting an enemy’s clip, or turning on their safety mid-combat means they have to spend a free action to fix what I fouled, then I’ve fulfilled my role. May not be the classical “Green Wizard receives -2 to saving throws” but it still sounds to me like I can make their jobs harder, and I’m ok with that. This leads nicely into my original question…

Excepting “dive for cover”, what are the top three actions for a combat hacker? When the dreck hits the fan, how can I mess up the enemies efforts the most? I understand that this is highly situational, but I’m sure some generalizations can be made. I’m looking for the hacker equivalent to the Street Samurai’s Aim, Fire/BF/FA, and dodge/soak damage. If a ‘Sam came to my table and understood these rules, I’d be a happy player.

Well, jumping from roof to roof you could manage. High agility, high gymnastics, hydraulic legs, some of the various bio/geneware for athletics group bonuses. Combine all that and you could manage to jump up onto a one story building or jump across a 16m or so gap. Could also stand to fall about 15ish meters before you really have to worry about taking damage. Obviously not the 'freefall from skyscraper' that the Major does, but still fairly cool.

Never tried playing one. They have some problems, but it might be viable.


He is thinking that you can only edit a still photo. Game rules say (Or perhaps just seem to suggest) that you can edit streaming footage, not just still images.

Yeah, only going to be any good for messing with backup footage of stuff they might have or perhaps if they use that 'total recall' ware or whatever it is. No way to rewrite real memories due to the lack of cyberbrains.


Ejecting clips is generally going to be little more than a mild inconvenience for the enemies, and far less effective then simply putting an SnS round in them. This is exasperated by the fact that it'll take you about two combat turns or so just to get that level of control over the person's stuff, by which time combat should be over one way or the other. For this reason there isn't a list of 'top three combat hacker options' because they don't play at all like you're envisioning them. Generally a combat hacker will be doing in combat what a sammy will be doing in combat only with more cover, or what a normal hacker would be doing in combat, which is something else often only indirectly related to combat (like locking doors so reinforcements can't get in, or hacking drones, or something similar).

The fact is that as many similarities as there are between GitS and SR, the physical control that hackers exert is perhaps the largest discrepancy. Because of this I think that focusing on the combat ability of the Major would be a better transition. I mean she can take on a tank with basically her bare hands.

Very true, particularly since there's a difference between being able to free fall like that without any risk at all and being able to fall yet consistently soak all the damage it could inflict. If you build the limbs towards full on durability, you could have 8 Body fairly easily as well as a fair amount of cyberlimb armor to go along with rating 6 Hydraulics. Sure, the impact armor gets cut in half, but it's still something, particularly when you factor Gymnastics into the equation.

The anime might not make it clear, but the manga indicates her 'free-fall' off buildings isn't uncontrolled - she trails a monowire tether behind her, some wonder-material that can support her weight but is nearly invisible if you're more than 5 feet away.

Also clear in the manga is that she's a brain driving drone bodies - at one point she fakes her death and her partner is driving around for a bit with her braincase sitting in the passenger seat hooked up to temporary life support.



-karma

That's right, I'd forgotten she uses the monowire to slow herself down. Well yeah, in that case, just go with the hydraulic jacks and some good jumping skill and you too can make holes in the concrete when you land unscathed.

Yeah, they don't make it as clear in the anime/movies other than her doing several body swaps and having some examples of cyberbrains (I think the first one for the series shows a cyberbrain hanging out in a briefcase)

Don't forget the movie "Solid State Society" where she's controlling two bodies at the same time, and almost manages a third.

And yes, first episode of GitS:SAC does involve a cyberbrain swap, with one in a case; there are more as well. In another episode, Motoko's driving down the freeway while in a VR chat room at the same time.

The first character I brought to the last campaign was inspired by Mirror’s Edge. I built a Phys Add with Kid Stealth legs et all. She could really move. Come to think of it, I may still have an image of her laying around somewhere…



I find that this is really at the heart of a lot of my complaints.



Man, that’s bitter sweet. I’m glad to have a direct answer, but that’s really not what I was hoping to hear. Thanks for the intel.



Your’ probably right, but the goal is not specifically to play as The Major but merely to emulate her hacking skills/style, though that may not have come across before. PS, The Major can only take on tanks if she’s naked. It’s true!

The campaigns specific char gen rules are unreleased, but I thought I’d try my hand at a core character anyways, just to see how to build in SR4. 400 pts, core only ATM. Additional options available at GM discretion.

165 Stats
005 Technomancer
010 Code Slinger (Skill TBD)
030 Elf
065 Resonance 6
090 Skills

Stats:
B:2 A:2 R:2 S:1 C:4 I:5 L:6 W: 5

Skill Groups:
3 Electronics
3 Cracking
3 Tasking

This leaves me 35 points for ancillary skills, sprite services, & complex forms. Oh, and a bunch of safe/drop houses (real and virtual.) Lifestyle and Gear are both unknown factors. We are legitimately working for a company, so there may be some mechanical benefits that come with that. If not, I’ll need to squeeze in some rent too. Maybe I should look into some disadvantages… Sigh. I hate disadvantages.

I ended up going Technomancer because I felt it had more character growth potential. Mages in SR 3 could always initiate for more power while Street Sams generally ended the game with much the same cyber the started with.

>B:2 A:2 R:2 S:1 C:4 I:5 L:6 W: 5

NOBADWRONG.

If you want to make someone who can shoot AND punch AND hack then your strength and agility are terrible. Body wouldn't hurt either. I recommend taking 5 instead of 6 points in logic and maybe taking a point off Willpower if you feel you can spare it? Right now you're looking like a straight up technomancer.

If you're going for an "ass-kicking" character instead of a "logically and narrative consistent" character, Elf is a mechanically bad metatype. But you're not minmaxing and that's cool.

Similarly, if ass-kicking is what you're going for, take the maximum of 30 flaws. You could take cheesy ones that you don't feel will affect you, true, but some of them open up opportunities and might make you mentally change things in the character's backstory. Enemy, for instance?

I'm not sure that all of those skill groups are in fact group skills. You might be cheating yourself of a bunch of points.

Finally, being a Technomancer means you need to keep your Essence score pristine, which means no prosthetic legs, which means Technomancer might not be for you. Technomancers can do some pretty cool things though, like hacking while paying attention to the real world at the same time.

ORLY? (I love that sound)

Last I checked it was good as long as you had planned on putting at least 1 point into agi and 2 points into charisma since the metatype costs the same as that but gives them to you for free, thus freeing up more of your 200BP max on stats, not to mention raising the maxes. Elves make good faces, sammies, (Charisma based) mages, and TMs. For a traditional hacker they aren't so great because traditional hackers don't have much charisma or agility generally. Oh, and as a freebe they get natural low light vision, which is handy for mages.

I do agree that he should drop logic down to 5. The extra point just isn't worth the 25 BP. Might want to consider the same with resonance, 25 BP is alot for a +1. That'd free up 50 BP that you could spread around on skills and better stats.

I also agree you should get the max 35 BP worth of disadvantages. If you really want there are tons out there that really won't adversely affect you.

I think he means in regards to this particular example, but I agree with your statement in general Karoline. Ultimately, high attribute totals are some of the best ways to spend your points even if you're not always maximizing things like post-chargen bp-to-karma ratios. For example, meta Street Samurai can make for amazing generalists simply because of the sheer amount of attribute boosting 'ware they can stack onto their already high attribute totals. In all honesty, I usually only play humans these days if I plan on maxing out an uncapped attribute like Edge, Magic or Resonance.

I suppose it's because my group goes with the D&D style philosophy of leaving talking to the people who are specialists at talking. So we have a lot of Orks for the free Body points.

Well, in this example, as a TM, you want a high Charisma (or at least decent) so 20 points are well spent. Having a not horrid agility is generally a good idea at all times. Overall I think elf or perhaps dwarf is your best choice for a TM. Elf gets the nice +2 Cha, and dwarf gets the nice +1 willpower and some free body and strength so that you can have decent physical stats without spending points on them.

Ork and Troll both have reduced mental stats, which tend to be bad for TMs, especially in the long run.